last updated jun 16, 2025

hello, if you’ve found this page, you’re either really good at sleuthing or you came from the director job application hehe

about me…

most recently i’ve been focused on practicing continually vanquishing hope and fear. i picked this idea up from “crazy wisdom” by chogyam trungpa. my understanding right now is that suffering arises when we want things to be other than how they are, and that’s exactly’s what hope and fear represent: a desire for things to be different than how they are.

other things about me… the only things that captivated me as a child were video games and origami. i’m slowly beginning to explore the world of origami again, and by extension the world of paper. in august i head to japan and i can’t wait to bring back learnings, inspiration, and potentially paper to share in this hemisphere

i studied russian in college. more specifically, i made the russian language and russian culture my entire life for three years of my life. when i graduated, i worked as a russian translator for two years until russia invaded ukraine. my mental health took a nosedive when that happened and i let my business slowly fade into non-existence; then i miraculously got a job at citibank as a business analyst by emailing a woman on a private job board. she was hiring for a vp position on her team, and i cold emailed her and said: “hey, my name is soran. i have 0 finance experience but i’m wondering if you have any more junior roles on your team that i could apply for.” Thank you. she said nope, i don’t, but i like your audacity so much that i’m going to make a role and hire you just cause. and that’s how i ended up working at citibank for a year and three months. it was soul crushing so i left and started telos. that’s a quick summary of the last five years of my life or so

if you want to learn more about me you can check out my twitter: https://x.com/soranzhuo

drop me a line at soran@telos.haus if you’d like to chat